Slept longer than I intended to so quickly showered and headed out to see if I could find somewhere to buy a motorbike. I've been toying with the idea of riding from Saigon to Hanoi for a while and decided that if I'm going to do it I need to start now.
I enquired at my hotel to see if they knew of somewhere and they couldn't understand why I would want to do it and didn't know anywhere so I headed off around the backpacker area to see if I could find any suitable bikes for sale. I'd assumed this would be easy and there'd be rows of bikes lined up outside hostels from others that had done the journey from Hanoi but I could only find a couple of semi-auto Honda Dream's and I really wanted to do the ride on a manual bike, despite the fact I've never really ridden one.
I eventually stumbled upon a little workshop right near my hotel that had a few Honda Win's for sale, which were one of the bikes I'd been thinking about. It turned out to be http://www.saigonmink.com which are a company I'd read about online and seemed to have a fairly good reputation so I decided I'd test ride the bike after I'd had some lunch and carried on walking. I'd been walking for quite a while when I realised I was just putting off the test ride. If you've ever seen the traffic in Saigon you'll probably understand why it's quite a daunting place to test drive a bike, let alone take your first ever ride on a manual bike, but I eventually bit the bullet, thinking that if I couldn't do this part I had no hope of completing the journey.
I got back to the workshop and the owner Danh got the bike out and explained that it had just had an engine rebuild, new tyres and battery. It also had a big rack on the back and a fold down rack on each side which would be good for when Anji gets back. I get on the bike and try to pull away, instantly stalling it but eventually get going. I hadn't realised that the Honda Dream's I'd been riding up till now had the gear shift in the opposite direction to most bikes and, even though I'd only ridden them twice, had got this stuck in my head so kept shifting down instead of up and vice versa. I took a few turns and started to get the hang of it before taking a longer ride around the area, I must've been gone quite a while as Danh looked releived then I eventually pulled back up the workshop. The bike seemed fine so we got to bartering and I bought the bike for $300 which seems to be about the going rate.
After getting all the documentation sorted, which consists of being given a small laminated card that proves you own the bike (if you lose this you're screwed) I took off around Saigon on the bike to see some sights. This was quite a baptism from fire and I had a few interesting moments like stalling in the middle of a huge roundabout with traffic coming from every direction but I was starting to get the hang of it. The main problem was that I only had a very sketchy city map from a tour company that was completely useless on foot, not that I could think of much other than trying not to get in the way of the traffic that comes in every direction of both sides of the road. So basically I got completely lost for a good few hours before finding a few landmarks I recognised and eventually finding my way back to the hotel.
I parked up the bike and decided it was about time I had something to eat so went for another wander around the block to find somewhere cheap, my search was quickly drawn to an end by a torrential downpour that forced me into a small cafe that ended up having some pretty fantastic noodle soup.
After the rain had stopped a cyclo driver came into the cafe and started talking to me about a city tour. I normally just tell them I'm not interested but he seemed genuinely nice, spoke very good english and had lived in Saigon during the war so had plenty of stories to tell. The tour worked out to be $10 and, whilst I thought this was a bit pricey, I realised I hadn't really seen any of Saigon and it would be nice to perhaps learn something about the city so I accepted and we went on our way.
The first stop was the War Remnants Museum, which was an intersting look at the Vietnam war from a side we don't often see in the west. It was of course very one sided and felt a bit like communist propaganda but most of the photos of american brutality were actually from american photographers with the US military. There was also a lot of information about the aftermath of the use of Agent Orange on the country and people.
After this we carried on to a *something or other* factory where I could see how *someting or other* was made. This started alarm bells ringing as it was obviously going to just be an excuse for a hard sell, but it wasn't so bad.
Along the way the driver pointed out lots of interesting buildings with stories from the war but I can't remember any of them. So there.
The next destination was Notre Dame cathedral where I bumped into the German girls from the bus. We had a quick chat and one of them was off to the riverside whereas one was going into the cathedral. I thought she said that there was currently a service and we coudn't go in until 5 which was only 5 minutes wait so I waited with her to take a look inside. What she actually said was, there's a service in at 5 and I'm going in so I ended up stuck in a service in Vietnamese. Now I'm not a big fan of church services anyway, especially not in Vietnamese and the church itself wasn't really very interesting inside so I made my excuses and left. Once outside I bumped into the american girl from the bus so again had a quick chat before climbing into the cyclo and heading towards the river front.
At the river front the driver pointed out all the different types of bonsai trees which to be honest I wouldn't have noticed on my own, they were quite interesting. We headed back via the antiques market where the driver pointed out some antiques from Vietnam's history but again it just seemed like a shopping trip.
On the way back to the hotel the driver started to tell me about how poor he was and how many children he has to support. This really started to ring alarm bells so I was getting prepared for some hassle after the tour. We got back to where he'd picked me up and I got my 20,000 dong ready to pay when he now decided that the tour was 20,000 per hour and we'd been 3 hours so it would cost $30. This really pissed me off and we had an restrained argument in the street where he showed me his leaflets, which he'd not shown me before, where it stated 20,000 per hour. In the end I just gave him 20,000, said that was all he was getting and walked off. I hate it when this happens but I really should've known better.
I headed back to the hotel annoyed and fairly fed up with Saigon.
Once back I skyped Anji to let her know about the bike and then went back out to pick up some waterproof covers for my bag and to buy a road atlas. As it was now dark the streets were absolutely full of people offering marijuana, "massages" and just plain prostitution. It's weird travelling as a lone male instead of in a couple as it just makes you a target for every tout on the street. I got the bag covers but couldn't find an atlas so decided to leave it until the morning. I really wasn't in the mood for dealing with the touts and needed to be up early so returned to the hotel to sleep.
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